‘Vintage year’ for law firm Pinsent Masons in Scotland as firm’s global turnover rises

Lawyers Pinsent Masons has announced preliminary details of its unaudited financial results for FY14/15 showing that the firm achieved global turnover of £362.2 million, up 12 per cent on FY13/14, while profit per equity partner increased to £538,000.

The firm announced in March that it plans to open offices in Sydney and Melbourne, before making up 29 partners – including five in Scotland – to take the firm’s partnership to over 400.

The firm also announced the hire of Bruce Craig, former managing partner of Aberdeen-based Mackinnons, to head up its litigation practice in the Granite City.

The firm acted on deals worth over £5 billion in Scotland during FY14/15 and currently has some 345 fee-earning lawyers across offices in Glasgow, Aberdeen and Edinburgh.

John Cleland, managing partner at Pinsent Masons, said: “It has been a positive year in which we have reaped the rewards of several significant investments we have made over a number of years.

“The McGrigors merger, new offices in Paris, Munich and Istanbul, and significant lateral hires into Asia and the Middle East have all played their part.

Ewan Alexander, a partner and head of Pinsent Masons’ Edinburgh office, said: “It’s been a vintage year for us in Scotland with Aberdeen, Glasgow and Edinburgh all reporting good activity levels.

“What we’ve found is that the Pinsent Masons/ McGrigors merger has yielded even more opportunity than we anticipated.

“Our standing in The City is better than it has ever been, and we have an integrated and growing presence in regions like Asia Pacific, The Middle East and Europe where our Scottish clients want to do more business.

“Our growth in Scotland has been driven by some fairly chunky deals for investment in and around the North Sea, a number of major commercial property transactions, and continued roles on some of the largest infrastructure projects in Scotland such as the new Forth Rail Replacement Crossing and Aberdeen West Peripheral Bypass.

“We’ve since kicked-off our new financial year with the £500m sale of Murco and the IPO of Cairn Homes, which reflects a general upturn in corporate activity.”